Money is an amazing thing. Although understanding money and financial instruments is so fascinating and so rewarding, it still remains an area which is studied and implemented only by specialists. The common man either ignores it or the little more concerned one at least listens to the life insurance agent. And of course everybody goes to a CA at the end of the year! (Assuming you aren’t like one of the guy I met, who even after earning for 3 years never cared to file his income tax refund and got his PAN card only after the company deducted 10,000 bucks to comply with the GOI rules).
I heard one person say, “I don’t understand banking. I only know how to withdraw money from my ATM and that is all that I need”. Few people know or really want to know about the financial instruments they can take advantage of. Alas, these people are missing out on one of the most enriching and rewarding things in life.
I started my journey with formal financial training when I was 9. My grand father (GF) opened a savings account for me in the Bank of Baroda. It was thrilling for me to have a bank account of my own. By then I only had a vague idea what a bank was, but that act of my GF changed everything. At the time of festivals, birthday, examination results, I used to get small amounts of money from all my close relatives. Those 10, 50, 100 bucks you get when you reluctantly bend to take the blessings of your elders ;) My father had also got me an earthen savings pot at home. It was an earthen pot with a slit at the top to put in money, usually change money in terms of coins. And the ‘catch’ was the pot had to be broken to take the money out, so everybody including my parents themselves were restrained to take it out before it filled up. Once in a while, my parents used to put in the coins there and I anxiously waited for the pot to fill up and then do the honors ;) When the pot finally opened, it poured out such a sum of money actually unimaginable considering the amount which was put in at a time. Counting these coins by making separate ‘buildings’ of them of 25ps, 50ps, 1rs , 2rs made a good time pass and the best thing was I exchanged these ‘buildings’ with my grand mother to get crisp notes which I happily went and deposited in my bank account.
My GF had told me that yours is a ‘minor’ account with him as the guardian so both of us could put in the money but only he could withdraw it. That you will say was unfair but I had complete faith on my GF, even so more than my parents ;) Year after year I kept on increasing my bank balance until I realized when I was old enough that I was not left with anything at hand! So by the time I was in say 7th, I cheekily set aside some of it for my personal expenses and put the rest in my account. All this while, GF used to give me checks which I needed to deposit in his account. He made me do operations of Demand Drafts, Fixed deposits, his pension account and also updating of passbooks a whole lot of times. What this did to me is that I learned all simple banking transactions quite early in life. And now I know that I was eligible to withdraw money when I was 10!! My GF must have done this for all the good reasons ;)
Maturing from here to FDs, RDs, Insurance, MFs, Income Tax was all that more easy and interesting to me. I owe a lot to my GF and my parents who taught me the basics of money.
Learning to value, save and grow money is one of the most important things one should learn in life.
I heard one person say, “I don’t understand banking. I only know how to withdraw money from my ATM and that is all that I need”. Few people know or really want to know about the financial instruments they can take advantage of. Alas, these people are missing out on one of the most enriching and rewarding things in life.
I started my journey with formal financial training when I was 9. My grand father (GF) opened a savings account for me in the Bank of Baroda. It was thrilling for me to have a bank account of my own. By then I only had a vague idea what a bank was, but that act of my GF changed everything. At the time of festivals, birthday, examination results, I used to get small amounts of money from all my close relatives. Those 10, 50, 100 bucks you get when you reluctantly bend to take the blessings of your elders ;) My father had also got me an earthen savings pot at home. It was an earthen pot with a slit at the top to put in money, usually change money in terms of coins. And the ‘catch’ was the pot had to be broken to take the money out, so everybody including my parents themselves were restrained to take it out before it filled up. Once in a while, my parents used to put in the coins there and I anxiously waited for the pot to fill up and then do the honors ;) When the pot finally opened, it poured out such a sum of money actually unimaginable considering the amount which was put in at a time. Counting these coins by making separate ‘buildings’ of them of 25ps, 50ps, 1rs , 2rs made a good time pass and the best thing was I exchanged these ‘buildings’ with my grand mother to get crisp notes which I happily went and deposited in my bank account.
My GF had told me that yours is a ‘minor’ account with him as the guardian so both of us could put in the money but only he could withdraw it. That you will say was unfair but I had complete faith on my GF, even so more than my parents ;) Year after year I kept on increasing my bank balance until I realized when I was old enough that I was not left with anything at hand! So by the time I was in say 7th, I cheekily set aside some of it for my personal expenses and put the rest in my account. All this while, GF used to give me checks which I needed to deposit in his account. He made me do operations of Demand Drafts, Fixed deposits, his pension account and also updating of passbooks a whole lot of times. What this did to me is that I learned all simple banking transactions quite early in life. And now I know that I was eligible to withdraw money when I was 10!! My GF must have done this for all the good reasons ;)
Maturing from here to FDs, RDs, Insurance, MFs, Income Tax was all that more easy and interesting to me. I owe a lot to my GF and my parents who taught me the basics of money.
Learning to value, save and grow money is one of the most important things one should learn in life.
4 comments:
bravo!! its nice to see people like you (i mean techies.. dont take it otherwise) being so interested in FINANCE/TAXATION concepts too. This is only the second instance i have encountered regarding such zeal to know things not related with your reign of work.I really feel good for such curiosity !! And last but not the least... keep writing .. i enjoy it really very much.
Hey Parikshit -that was good! Your GF did right thing by introducing you to banking.
I agree with Kedar - keeps writing regularly - me too enjoy it lot just like our discussions we used to have in college :)...
Good re!! I also went to my "childhood cash-pot" while reading it. Actually, it is the lack of knowledge, money management by people that bring obstacles in their financial life.
Really, a field of immense interst :)
Great work.
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